Fergus Unfettered
by Femme Bono
Summary: Crowley finds his own "unicorn," and in doing so, heals some old and festered wounds. Rated for later. ;)


_Prologue_

_Fergus McLeod may have admitted it right before passing into a drunken stupor, but Crowley never would. Why he wanted that extra three inches would stay buried beneath the Scottish sod, right next to his own empty plot. Her name in life had been Morgana McLeod, nee MacFarlane, and she just never could keep it under her skirts. One night in a blind, scotch-induced rage poor middle-class Fergus stood in a crossroad and howled out his frustrations at the stupidity of trying to marry up. She was beyond him in all ways, beauty, decadence…everything but money, which Fergus had in abundance. He was always wheeling and dealing that one, a born horse trader as the Irish would say. He could talk paupers into giving up their last penny. And he had talked her father out of his only daughter. For his troubles Fergus spent many a drunken night wondering where in God's highlands she was. _

_So that one whiskey soaked evening as he stumbled to the signpost at the corner and braced a hand against it for support while he vomited mightily and then slid to the ground, he was unsurprised to find a stranger offering him a handkerchief to dab his mouth. His caterwauling had set many a soul to close their shutters in frustration and had drawn many a heckle from the pub nearby. Canisbay was a small town in the north of Scotland, and all within knew of young McLeod's troubles. Morgana MacFarlane had always been a light-skirt, and she had barely slowed down once wed. Poor Fergus thought if only he could keep her happy, he could keep her around. Thus when he poured out his troubles to this sympathetic stranger, he did so with nary a hope that he could find a way to make her stay true. When that stranger's eyes flashed scarlet against the inky night, though he felt a spark of fear, Fergus felt just as strong a stirring within the darkest recesses of his mind. Here was a power he had only dreamt of, a power his own mother would give her eye teeth for in a minute. Yet so deep was he in his cups and so sarcastic a retort always on his lips, when that stranger asked what he wanted more in this world he answered the first thing that popped into his inebriated brain, "a willy the size of a babe's arm. That'll make 'er stay put, eh?" And before further ado, the stranger gave him a smack on the lips, a dark chuckle and was gone before Fergus passed out._

_For the life of him, when he regained consciousness the next morning he could not fathom this sudden anatomical miracle. The north of Scotland in the 17__th__ century was not such a modern place that devils at the crossroads were unheard of, but it took ages for Fergus to admit that the foggy memories shrouded in a whiskey haze were fact. For his wife's part, though she played the dutiful wife at times, she took his new and improved appendage as an excuse to reinforce her standpoint that her father had been induced through witchcraft to promise his daughter off to a two-bit tailor with dreams of grandeur. Feigning fear of her husband and in-laws, Morgana eventually removed herself back to her father's home and eventually to a convent outside of Elgin. Their son remained with his father and grandmother in the McLeods' manor overlooking Loch Dubh._

_Eight years later, ten years to the day of his fateful drinking binge, Fergus McLeod heard the hounds baying for him. A century or so later, when he had learned a thing or two, he returned and disinterred his remains, placing a pauper's in the grave instead. His mother's bones had long since been burned by local hunters, for she had continued to haunt the old homestead after her untimely death. For his wife's eternal consternation and unsettlement, he had her dug up and placed in his family plot. For her infidelity, he kept her locked in a dungeon in hell which he eventually bricked up after a few years of visiting her on a daily basis just to leer through the small grate in the door. When the novelty had worn off, Fergus had sworn to himself that never would he trust another blasted woman. Never would he allow himself to be played for a fool. Never would he let himself care for another or be hurt again. It was at that point, as he walked away from his wife's wretched screams, that Crowley was born._


End file.
